Skanky Vamp
Sniffin' the Slayer
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I stumbled across this article on japonik and thought others might dig it....
by Elizabeth Blackstock
In 1897, Cambridge students lined the streets to protest a vote that would grant women the right to earn a degree at their prestigious all-male university. The budding shitheads of the turn of the century launched rockets, threw eggs, and hanged an effigy of the powerful “New Woman” from a building and subsequently mutilated it in the streets. That “New Woman” was identified by one defining accessory: her bicycle.
The world began to change when women first climbed onto the bicycle. In an era when they were confined to the arena of domesticity, women suddenly had an affordable method of finding independence. Once they did, the worlds of both mobility and social change would never be the same.
Bikes boomed across the world in the 1890s as a breakthrough affordable mode of transportation. They were cheaper (about $3-15) and far easier to use than a horse and buggy ($150 for the horse), let alone a car (easily $750 around the turn of the century). In a time when the average person would earn a weekly salary of $10.06, buying a bike was the first big piece of tech for affordable, personal transportation.
Suddenly, the average person could easily travel out beyond the home.
Women and Bikes
Up until the early 1900s, women were intended to be masters of the domestic sphere, as noted in Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese Oneill. They cooked, cleaned, took care of children, and generally did not leave the house unless escorted by the prominent male figure in their life—a husband or a father. That meant no formal involvement in things like business, politics, or education. But that wasn’t going to last long when there was a simple mode of travel (just hop on, balance, and go) laying around.
With bicycles under their metaphorical belts, early twentieth century women started to be around. In shops. In the streets. In parks. They could no longer be ignored or easily segregated—and they could begin to understand how, exactly, life outside the house was lived. And that meant they could start advocating for themselves.
Fashion and Health
Traditional Victorian dress died as the bike drastically transformed women’s clothing. Imagine trying to ride a bike outfitted in a corset, bustle, and multi-layer full-length skirts. It’s pretty much impossible. Out went the heavy, impractical clothing and in came bloomers, or, essentially what would happen if you sewed a big skirt into a baggy pair of pants and cinched them at the knee.
That was hugely scandalous back then. How dare a woman flaunt her individuated legs and possibly even the shape of her calves! There was even a new “sport corset” that was less restrictive than the traditional corset but also contained a lot of back support—proving that women couldn’t just completely give up certain aspects of the expected dress code.
There are actually a bunch of patents by female inventors dedicated to making cyclewear more comfortable for women. One even included a skirt that came entirely away from the body—which was wild back in an era when that kind of bodily freedom was wholly unacceptable.
The thing about Victorian-era fashion, though, was that it was about more than just practical clothing. It was about morals. Victorians wore so many clothes because it was morally unacceptable to show any part of your body, ever—or even the mere intimation of your body, as evidenced by the bloomers. Before this change in fashion could be embraced, an entire societal shift would need to happen.
What followed was something of a frenzy—accusations that biking was actually very bad for women in many ways, but especially for their health. Bicycling could cause—gasp—physical exhaustion. Doctor A. Shadwell claimed it could cause depression. It was even said biking would cause something called “bicycle face.”
This so-called medical condition appeared in the Literary Digest in 1895 and was characterized by a “usually flushed, but sometimes pale [complexion], often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness.” Other sources said bicycle face involved “hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes.”
The aforementioned Dr. Shadwell wrote an entire article about this godforsaken disease in 1897, which you can read here. His logic is… well, I’ll let you see for yourself:
Bicycle face was very much like hysteria in that it was a very convenient and oftentimes dubious “diagnosis” for unruly women, something that Maya Dusenbery discusses in her book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Sick, Misdiagnosed, and Sick.. These women on their bikes weren’t conforming to the standard that women normally would be by staying home and appropriately dressed, which meant something must be wrong with them.
And, yes—bicycling was said to make women sexually aggressive. Part of that was the physicality of bike riding and the fact that the seat was making close contact with the pelvis. That potential sexual stimulation led to “hygienic” seats—ones that little or no padding where the genitals touched the saddle. The point was to make things so uncomfortable that women couldn’t possibly be aroused. Here’s more from Andrew Denning’s The Fin-de-Siecle World:
It goes on to talk about how integral bicycles were for the Suffragette Movement and then how women's bicycle racing helped spawn the first women athletes. You should read the rest here if interested. Just didn't want to post too much.
by Elizabeth Blackstock
In 1897, Cambridge students lined the streets to protest a vote that would grant women the right to earn a degree at their prestigious all-male university. The budding shitheads of the turn of the century launched rockets, threw eggs, and hanged an effigy of the powerful “New Woman” from a building and subsequently mutilated it in the streets. That “New Woman” was identified by one defining accessory: her bicycle.
The world began to change when women first climbed onto the bicycle. In an era when they were confined to the arena of domesticity, women suddenly had an affordable method of finding independence. Once they did, the worlds of both mobility and social change would never be the same.
Bikes boomed across the world in the 1890s as a breakthrough affordable mode of transportation. They were cheaper (about $3-15) and far easier to use than a horse and buggy ($150 for the horse), let alone a car (easily $750 around the turn of the century). In a time when the average person would earn a weekly salary of $10.06, buying a bike was the first big piece of tech for affordable, personal transportation.
Suddenly, the average person could easily travel out beyond the home.
Women and Bikes
Up until the early 1900s, women were intended to be masters of the domestic sphere, as noted in Unmentionable: The Victorian Lady’s Guide to Sex, Marriage, and Manners by Therese Oneill. They cooked, cleaned, took care of children, and generally did not leave the house unless escorted by the prominent male figure in their life—a husband or a father. That meant no formal involvement in things like business, politics, or education. But that wasn’t going to last long when there was a simple mode of travel (just hop on, balance, and go) laying around.
With bicycles under their metaphorical belts, early twentieth century women started to be around. In shops. In the streets. In parks. They could no longer be ignored or easily segregated—and they could begin to understand how, exactly, life outside the house was lived. And that meant they could start advocating for themselves.
Fashion and Health
Traditional Victorian dress died as the bike drastically transformed women’s clothing. Imagine trying to ride a bike outfitted in a corset, bustle, and multi-layer full-length skirts. It’s pretty much impossible. Out went the heavy, impractical clothing and in came bloomers, or, essentially what would happen if you sewed a big skirt into a baggy pair of pants and cinched them at the knee.
That was hugely scandalous back then. How dare a woman flaunt her individuated legs and possibly even the shape of her calves! There was even a new “sport corset” that was less restrictive than the traditional corset but also contained a lot of back support—proving that women couldn’t just completely give up certain aspects of the expected dress code.
There are actually a bunch of patents by female inventors dedicated to making cyclewear more comfortable for women. One even included a skirt that came entirely away from the body—which was wild back in an era when that kind of bodily freedom was wholly unacceptable.
The thing about Victorian-era fashion, though, was that it was about more than just practical clothing. It was about morals. Victorians wore so many clothes because it was morally unacceptable to show any part of your body, ever—or even the mere intimation of your body, as evidenced by the bloomers. Before this change in fashion could be embraced, an entire societal shift would need to happen.
What followed was something of a frenzy—accusations that biking was actually very bad for women in many ways, but especially for their health. Bicycling could cause—gasp—physical exhaustion. Doctor A. Shadwell claimed it could cause depression. It was even said biking would cause something called “bicycle face.”
This so-called medical condition appeared in the Literary Digest in 1895 and was characterized by a “usually flushed, but sometimes pale [complexion], often with lips more or less drawn, and the beginning of dark shadows under the eyes, and always with an expression of weariness.” Other sources said bicycle face involved “hard, clenched jaw and bulging eyes.”
The aforementioned Dr. Shadwell wrote an entire article about this godforsaken disease in 1897, which you can read here. His logic is… well, I’ll let you see for yourself:
There wasn’t much consensus about bicycle face, given that it wasn’t a real ‘disease’. It was at once a permanent position and a temporary affliction, depending on who you asked.
Bicycle face was very much like hysteria in that it was a very convenient and oftentimes dubious “diagnosis” for unruly women, something that Maya Dusenbery discusses in her book Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Sick, Misdiagnosed, and Sick.. These women on their bikes weren’t conforming to the standard that women normally would be by staying home and appropriately dressed, which meant something must be wrong with them.
And, yes—bicycling was said to make women sexually aggressive. Part of that was the physicality of bike riding and the fact that the seat was making close contact with the pelvis. That potential sexual stimulation led to “hygienic” seats—ones that little or no padding where the genitals touched the saddle. The point was to make things so uncomfortable that women couldn’t possibly be aroused. Here’s more from Andrew Denning’s The Fin-de-Siecle World:
Most of these “diagnoses” and uncomfortable changes were quickly phased out. As more women began to ride bikes—and the world wisened up to the objective benefits of bicycling for everyone—the pseudo-science and the technology that was created to fix it disappeared.
It goes on to talk about how integral bicycles were for the Suffragette Movement and then how women's bicycle racing helped spawn the first women athletes. You should read the rest here if interested. Just didn't want to post too much.
